A protester putting up a finger during ‘Helsinki Calling!’ protest against Trump and Putin’s visit to Finland at the Senate Square in Helsinki on July 15, 2018. Picture: Tony Öhberg for Finland Today
There were about 2,000 people at the Senate Square in Helsinki on the sunny Sunday afternoon. Some were participants of “Helsinki Calling!,” a protest against Trump and Putin, but many were regular tourists taking snapshots of the Helsinki Cathedral that was blocked by a minibus that had people holding speeches on top of it.
Tourists didn’t seem to mind; they passed the minibus and ascended the steep stairs leading to the church, spread their arms and—click!—took another holiday photo for their family album.
Päivi Butcher did not like the idea of Trump coming to Finland. Picture: Tony Öhberg for Finland Today
Päivi Butcher, 41, from Tampere, central Finland, was holding a sign that said “What did Robert De Niro say?” Well, what did he say?
“F**k Donald Trump,” Butcher whispered to me.
Butcher was upset that Trump and Putin—especially Trump—was coming to visit Finland. “I’m against his environmental policy . . . basically against everything he does,” she said.
Her friend Johanna Seppälä, 51, from Helsinki, didn’t mind that Trump and Putin will meet in Finland. “I think it was the only option for Putin,” she said.
Seppälä, however, didn’t think that the protest was a success.
“It would have been better to organize one big protest instead of many small ones,” she said.
The organizers expected as much as 15,000 people to join “Helsinki Calling!”
According to the machine calculations by the police, the number of people at the Senate Square was 2135.
Hilde Torvalds, 10, was advocating peace and girl power. Picture: Tony Öhberg for Finland Today
Some protesters were holding signs in English and Russian. Picture: Tony Öhberg for Finland Today
